Hello!

Welcome to another edition of Saturday Pentacle.

I hope your week went well. My own week was filled with work on both professional and personal fronts. But I felt joy working on both fronts as I’ve been coping with stress with my meditation sessions (with Waking Up app).

I’ve been practising a new kind of meditation from the app where you are observing your breathing for some time from a seeker perspective and then you suddenly switch perspective by seeing yourself seeking. It may sound weird and difficult but it makes you see yourself from a secondary point of view.

At biological level It makes you feel what is it that’s looking outwards, is it your brain? you as an entity? a bundle of nerves? or what? Sometimes I felt the agony of not being able to know – what is it inside me that is observing the breathing, of course, it can be said that it is oneself, but is it really though? Or is it just our consciousness?

But as I did the practice for a few days, I finally started to understand what it denotes. Why feeling this way is necessary and observing this state of self is necessary. Because If we see, our body and soul (if you think there is one), connects with each other through the consciousness. If consciousness is helping us gaze into the world, what if you start gazing back at consciousness itself. It starts disappearing as an object and remains as an inherent subject (oneself).

I know the whole thing I mentioned above, one may not understand completely, because you have to do this kind of session yourself with an open mind to be able to understand this. But it truly helped me in gaining perspective. I was able to focus more and feel joy.

Coming to creative progress –

1. I’m on day 37 (consecutive) streak of a new language learning and feeling great to learn more.
2. My next podcast episode (Episode 24 is also coming soon in next week), editing is in progress.
3. My book reading progress –
   1. The Ride of a Lifetime: Lessons in Creative Leadership from the CEO of the Walt Disney Company – Progress 15% (Audible)
   2. The Memoirs of Sherlock Homes – Progress 10% (Audible)

That’s it for personal and creative updates.

Without further adieu, please enjoy this week’s Saturday-Pentacle.

Issue 196 // Week 32 // 2020

An article I found useful —

How To Write In Your Journal To Improve Yourself and Achieve Your Goals – This how-to article by Benjamin Hardy, PhD is very elaborate documentation about why journaling is the most important thing one should do.

Where, why and when to journal. How to achieve a peak state with journaling right before you are about to start your work.

Useful read.

A travel itinerary I loved —

Mumbai to London by Train – Even though travelling seems like a distant dream in these COVID-19 times. But still one can dream. This itinerary is nothing short of a dream. Mumbai to London by Train!

Even though this route has a route through Pakistan, which may not be feasible now if you are going from India. But still, this IIT Guwahati student’s Itinerary felt like so much fun but a daring long train journey. Someday! (Someday!)

A trick I loved to journal more —

Real-Time Journaling – This real-time journaling video (with timer) by Lavendaire founder Aileen Xu, really helped me establish a journaling routine. As I was facing difficulty concentrating in my journaling habit. This feeling of writing along with someone really did the trick and I was able to journal more often.

Check it out, it may be helpful for you too if you are finding it difficult to journal.

Music I’m listening to —

Iltija by Samar Mehdi – I stumbled upon this refreshing piece of music by Samar Mehdi. Really heart felt piece of music and lyrics –

हुए जुदा जब हम तुमसे…
और क़रीब आ गए तुम हमसे…

When you are apart from me…
now we feel closer…

Really good one. Check it out.

Quote which I found meaningful –

The best ideas and insights occur away from your work. They happen while you’re relaxing, or often while you’re thinking about something completely unrelated.

— Benjamin Hardy, PhD

Before saying “see you next week”

I’m really excited to share the new episode of my podcast! (Finally after a good long creative block)

Episode 23 – Chidanand Hiremath (Visual Designer, Photographer and former Digital Nomad) – Traveling the world, knowing oneself and creating nude art

Links – Spotify | YouTube

Lastly, join the Lifestyle Architecture Lab interactive community on Vibely app! 💙

We do creative challenges, habit creation and related stuff on the group. Here is your special invite link to the group.

Until Next Saturday!

Thanks for reading.

Himanshu

About Author

I’m Himanshu Sachdeva, a technology professional working in Mumbai, India. I spend most of my spare time making Podcasts, YouTube videos and write on Lifestyle Design and sometimes stories.

Every Saturday, I send out an email newsletter called “Saturday Pentacle”, a list of the cool stuff I explored in the past week, including quotes, photos, books, articles, movies, documentaries and so on!

No spam, ever. Only great stuff.

Saturday-Pentacle // Issue 196 // Week 32 // 2020

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